determining RIVALS

[phily915]

I was thinking of a way of determining/acquiring new rivals during your dynasty instead of just picking 3 or 4 teams and leaving it at that.

I was thinking that by using the greatness score of a game they could, at a certain point total (say 5,000 points) determines a new rival. This score would have to be a total that would take a few years to reach. This rivalry game would also need to be a game on your schedule either every year (league game) or a game played maybe every other year (non-conf. game)

So for example: my team is Ohio University
I schedule Ohio State every year for 5 straight years
Year 1= W, 2OT Game Winning FG Greatness Score-1,500
Year 2= L, Game Winning FG Greatness Score-1,300
Year 3= W, Game Winning Hail Mary Greatness Score 2,000
etc...through Year 5

Through playing those games for 5 straight years and all the emotion of these hard fought games I put into that series to accumulate enough points to finally achieve Ohio State as my rival, that would be truly gratifying as a gamer.

Although, I realize you may play a team 5 straight years and blow them out each time. But, one may argue that this could be considered a rivalry cuz the other team (and their fan base) really hates your team at this point. Maybe there would be a way to quantify this as well....?

Any thoughts or additions are definitely welcome!!

[TDenverFan]

I also think you should be able to lose rivls. My ideas:

Gainig A Rival

If you schedula an OOC opponent for either
-5 Years in a row
-3 Years in a row with all games being decided by 10 points or less
they become your rival.

For in conference rivals
-2 Instant Classics in a row
-4 Close games in a row (Less than 10 point victory)

Losing A Rival

For OOC
-3 years without playing them
-5 Years of games decided by 11 or more points

For inconference
-4 years of blowout games with 1 team winning all of the games

These are just my ideas

[Bullet Sponge]

I second all this and like your criteria. Perhaps geography should play a part too. The closer a school is to yours the greater chance of a rivalry (tweaking the criteria you set forth). Or also the importance of a game should count for more. For instance if the victor of a game ruined the other's shot at a title, etc. The holy grail of all this is if the game remembers the history and lets the announcer mention it before the game.

[DCDuck]

Perhaps if both teams have high prestige, rivalries take longer to "decay". Notre Dame has rivalries with just about everyone in the country, it seems. Miami (FL) last year in the Sun Bowl was supposedly a "rivalry renewed".

Then again nothing makes sense in the game when applied to Notre Dame.

[dshill]

this is an idea I've been hoping for for a while. The only thing is that I hope there's some stricter criteria for losing rivalries, or possibly protected rivalries, so that the classic rivalries of college football don't get lost. I don't know what your definition of a blowout is for in-conference, but the last four Michigan / Ohio State games have been decided by 11 points or more, so under your ooc rules this would no longer be a rivalry (I understand this is an in-conference game, I'm just using an example). Obviously, Michigan / Ohio State is still greatly heated even if it hasn't been the most competitive recently, but it's still as heated as ever. For smaller rivalries (for instance, Wisconsin / Iowa is one I'm pretty sure is going to die with the new division alignments) this system works, but I wish the Iron Bowls of the world would be safe from it.

[Bullet Sponge]

An easy way to protect rivalries would be that they take as long to decay as they have been in existence (up to the point where the decay started). so Michigan/Ohio state would be virtually protected forever. A rivalry you've had for 10 years might disappear if you have 10 years of non competitive results or you don't play each other.

[pirates946]

Like the OP said, maybe not just every year the games go either way or the games are close or anything like that but maybe because you keep blowing them out or something and the other team hates you now. I am reminded of Texas and Texas Tech for the past 10 years or so Texas has almost always won (except for 2008) and as of late we have played them close but before that they would always beat us and it wouldnt always be close but yet they were still are rival even if we never beat them.

[poopoop]

You have to start at the base.

Right now the only thing rivalries seem to do is:
-Give you a recruiting boost. Inviting recruits to rivalry games is huge. Also you can promise a winning record against rivals as a recruiting pitch.
-They also sometimes tie into your coaching contract/goals (I think).

So the only tangible benefit to adding more rivals is making recruiting easier. You'll have more home "rivalry" games every year to invite recruits to, so a better chance of getting those huge boosts.

I guess what I'm getting at is...outside of recruiting whys it matter if a team is offically listed as your rival or not? If you have good, exciting games against them every year is a little icon that says "rivalry game" gonna change anything?

Game needs to do a better job handling current rivalries before worrying about adding more.